Decoherence Media

decoherence.mediaWelcome to Decoherence Media!We're an independent, journalist-founded nonprofit investigating authoritarian and anti-democratic movements using open-source and data-driven methods.

27 Oct 2025

Welcome to Decoherence Media, an independent nonprofit founded by @jennefer.bsky.social and @tristanl.ee that investigates authoritarian and anti-democratic movements using open-source and data-driven methods.

Decoherence Media is honored to be part of the Forbidden Stories Lab!

Forbidden Stories@forbidden-stories.bsky.social

🇺🇸 Forbidden Stories Lab at UC Berkeley: join us for the launch! 🎙️ On October 9, Forbidden Stories and @berkeleyjournalism.bsky.social will officially launch the Forbidden Stories Lab at UC Berkeley with a conversation around the power of collaborative journalism in protecting stories that matter.

24 Aug

We put together this helpful diagram to show participation in various organizations, chats & arrests by 6 of the individuals mentioned in our new story about how Andrew Nary, a pastor’s son, started a neo-Nazi militia called Automata & got arrested by the FBI: decoherence.media/the-rise-and...

21 Aug

From The rise and fall of Automata: A leaked recording of a '23 voice chat w/Andrew Nary & Aiden Cuevas- a 3rd man known as “Roman” demands deletion of compromising photos that jeopardize his planned enlistment in the Army. "Roman" is not charged in their case & his identity remains unconfirmed.

21 Aug

The recording was posted in December 2024 by a Telegram channel that published private messages from Tennessee Active Club members. Media compilation by Appalachia Research Club @appalachiarc.bsky.social.

decoherence.mediaThe rise and fall of AutomataThe inside story of how a pastor’s son started a neo-Nazi militia and got arrested by the FBI

21 Aug

Jennefer Harper @jennefer.bsky.social and Wiley D. Cope’s @wileycope.bsky.social investigation traces Andrew Nary’s path from radicalized high school senior to federal defendant. Read the full story here: decoherence.media/the-rise-and...

decoherence.mediaThe rise and fall of AutomataThe inside story of how a pastor’s son started a neo-Nazi militia and got arrested by the FBI

NEW from Jennefer Harper @jennefer.bsky.social & Wiley D. Cope @wileycope.bsky.social! The rise and fall of Automata: The inside story of how a pastor’s son started a neo-Nazi militia and got arrested by the FBI. decoherence.media/the-rise-and...

Decoherence Media verified five years of Telegram exports, court records and public documents to trace Nary from radicalized high school senior to federal defendant. Research contribution by Appalachia Research Club @appalachiarc.bsky.social

decoherence.mediaDonateWe are an independent, journalist-founded nonprofit and 100% supported by readers like you.

Collecting and analyzing years of Telegram exports takes time and money, to support our work, consider donating or subscribing to Decoherence Media decoherence.media/donate/

decoherence.mediaThe rise and fall of AutomataThe inside story of how a pastor’s son started a neo-Nazi militia and got arrested by the FBI

By 2026 the network was hunting snitches in its own ranks. Cuevas allegedly paid an undercover officer $1,500 for guns with obliterated serial numbers — in part, prosecutors say, to “take out” a former associate. Both pleaded not guilty.

Jared Holt @jaredlholt.bsky.social from @openmeasures.io told us: “Figures, organizations, and stylings of these spaces are highly disposable. The branding and strategies extremist movements adopt are fluid, but the driver of that activity is constant."

decoherence.mediaThe rise and fall of AutomataThe inside story of how a pastor’s son started a neo-Nazi militia and got arrested by the FBI

Out of that network came the North 'Bama Brigade (NBB), founded by Aiden Cuevas to build a pro-white community in northern Alabama. Members Brandon Crews and Logan Gulbranson were arrested in January 2025 over an alleged break-in at a Mississippi nuclear site

Decoherence Media was able to identify 2 members of the North 'Bama Brigade chat with ties to the transnational neo-Nazi network The Base: a Bulgarian member using the alias “Buron” & another going by “Skin,” from England, who was active in other chats with members from The Base’s Dutch cell.

decoherence.mediaThe rise and fall of AutomataThe inside story of how a pastor’s son started a neo-Nazi militia and got arrested by the FBI

On August 18, 2026, Kai Nix was sentenced by a federal judge to 5 months imprisonment, 5 months home detention, and 3 years supervised release after pleading guilty last September to a charge of selling a stolen firearm.

Automata folded in 2021 before resurfacing in 2023, now sharing considerable organizational overlap with the rapidly growing Active Club network. Nary even tried to start his own Active Club chapter, and networked with other chapters in the Southeast.

decoherence.mediaThe rise and fall of AutomataThe inside story of how a pastor’s son started a neo-Nazi militia and got arrested by the FBI

Automata's chats also had an early crossover with the notorious sextortion network 764. At least 3 members sat in a chat alongside 764's founder Bradley Cadenhead, who was sentenced to 80 years in prison for possessing child pornography.

One member of Automata was Kai Nix, an active soldier in 2024 who was indicted for firearms trafficking & lying about his involvement in white supremacist groups. Three years before that, Nix was posting in an Automata chat about assaulting a bystander at a Patriot Front march.

decoherence.mediaThe rise and fall of AutomataThe inside story of how a pastor’s son started a neo-Nazi militia and got arrested by the FBI

"It just occurred to me almost all of us active are underage," a member wrote in 2021. Andrew Nary wanted more "17 and 18 yr olds." One offered $10 every two weeks out of chore money. Another quit when his mom installed monitoring software on his phone.

Jeff Tischauser @jtischauser.bsky.social from SPLC told Decoherence Media, “what's notable here is that we don't have more Nary's running around. Because guys like Nary come to imagine their parent's conservatism as being too soft and too cowardly to do what needs to be done to save the white race”

decoherence.mediaThe rise and fall of AutomataThe inside story of how a pastor’s son started a neo-Nazi militia and got arrested by the FBI

At age 18, Andrew Nary mapped out a white ethnostate in North Carolina, and required his mostly teenage members to pay for it. Six years later the FBI arrested Andrew Nary and his associate Aiden Cuevas after they tried to buy machine guns from an undercover.

Andrew Nary founded Automata in 2020, a white-power militia w/ accelerationist aesthetics & plans for “Skouria” a whites-only micronation on 24 acres in the North Caroline mountains — a self-billed “Totalitarian Theocracy” whose affiliates owed $10/month plus 2% of their pay to “His Lordship” Nary.

13 July

We are aware of an X account that’s impersonating our outlet and claims to have “identified” the person behind another far-right troll account. Please ignore them and report the account for impersonation.

theguardian.comWhy data sleuths are archiving the Jeffrey Epstein files: ‘We want to provide some clarity’Tommy Carstensen oversees one of the most sophisticated archives of Epstein materials, while Tristan Lee’s database provides searches of faces who appear in the files

20 May

We're excited to see our epstein.photos project highlighted by The Guardian alongside Tommy Carstensen and Emma Best from DDoSecrets. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

epstein.photosEpstein NetworkExplore the network of people who appear in the Epstein files and see how they're connected.

20 May

Building on the work of bsky.app/profile/ddos... and bsky.app/profile/emma...

We just passed 500 names, including 220 who haven't previously been reported on in connection with Epstein. Thanks to everyone who's sent us tips, we're identifying more people every day.

Decoherence Media@decoherence.media

NEW: We used facial recognition to identify more than 400 people who appear in photos from the Epstein Files and mapped out their connections. 170 of them haven’t previously been reported on in connection with Epstein. Explore the data with our new website: epstein.photos

epstein.photosEpstein NetworkExplore the network of people who appear in the Epstein files and see how they're connected.

We just published a guide to the website that covers how to use it, our methodology, and how we decided who to name. decoherence.media/we-identifie...

decoherence.mediaWe identified more than 400 people in photos from the Epstein files170 haven't been reported on before, explore them all with our new website: epstein.photos

The “Home” page shows a network visualization of everyone we’ve identified: nodes are people and edges between nodes are when the two people have appeared together in a photo in the Epstein files.

epstein.photosEpstein NetworkExplore the network of people who appear in the Epstein files and see how they're connected.

Bahraini Prince Sheikh Mohamed Al Khalifa is shown in a picture sent from Tancredi Marchiolo to Epstein. Marchiolo wrote in an October 2013 email to Epstein “im coming to paris Monday and leaving Tuesday with the prince of Bahrain you in town?” Epstein replied “monday night free.”

We also found a picture of Google co-founder Sergey Brin on Guana island, standing a few feet away from alleged sex trafficker Jean-Luc Brunel. Ghislaine Maxwell sent Epstein an email in December 2006, “Sergey Brin and his g'firend Anne (my friend) are going stay at Guana..”

epstein.photosEpstein NetworkExplore the network of people who appear in the Epstein files and see how they're connected.

These include co-founder of MTV John Sykes, currently President of Entertainment Enterprises at iHeart Media. He is shown in Epstein’s private plane, and his name is in a flight log from October 2004.

Decoherence Media reposted

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Replying to @decoherence.media

Decoherence Media is a reader-supported nonprofit newsroom. You can support our work investigating the authoritarian right by donating or subscribing.

Decoherence Media reposted

Tristan Lee

@tristanl.ee

decoherence.mediaFar-right troll account followed by JD Vance on X unmasked“HowlingMutant,” who jokes about rape and the Holocaust, is Alexander Norden of New York City

We're trending on X now lmao

Decoherence Media@decoherence.media

NEW: We’ve identified the man who runs the far-right troll account on X “HowlingMutant,” whose jokes about rape and the Holocaust have earned him nearly 200,000 followers, which include Vice President JD Vance. His name is Alexander Norden, from Rockaway Park in New York City.

decoherence.mediaFar-right troll account followed by JD Vance on X unmasked“HowlingMutant,” who jokes about rape and the Holocaust, is Alexander Norden of New York City

We confirmed the match using a data breach search website: the same phone number is linked to both the name “Alexander Norden” and the Substack account “HowlingMutant,” which links to the X account and uses the same profile picture.

decoherence.mediaDonateWe are an independent, journalist-founded nonprofit and 100% supported by readers like you.

Decoherence Media is a reader-supported nonprofit newsroom. You can support our work investigating the authoritarian right by donating or subscribing.

decoherence.mediaFar-right troll account followed by JD Vance on X unmasked“HowlingMutant,” who jokes about rape and the Holocaust, is Alexander Norden of New York City

The identification came as a result of a HowlingMutant post about the J.G. Ballard novel “Concrete Island.” The Goodreads page for the book showed a review from a user named “Alex Norden.”

Pictures and biographical information from Norden’s LinkedIn and social media closely matched information that HowlingMutant had posted, including employment history and living in New York.

decoherence.mediaFar-right troll account followed by JD Vance on X unmasked“HowlingMutant,” who jokes about rape and the Holocaust, is Alexander Norden of New York City

He has also posted about the Holocaust, writing that it’s “been used as a cudgel against any right wing movements for years.” He’s joked about being sexually attracted to a pile of shoes at the Holocaust Museum, and referenced Holocaust denial tropes like “wooden doors.”

HowlingMutant went on the podcast of Patrick Casey, the former leader of American neo-Fascist group Identity Evropa. He said he knows that “a lot of political people” don’t follow him because of his posts “about being a retarded pedophile or something.”

decoherence.mediaFar-right troll account followed by JD Vance on X unmasked“HowlingMutant,” who jokes about rape and the Holocaust, is Alexander Norden of New York City